What Ministers Don’t Understand About Elders

What Ministers Don’t Understand About Elders

This article collects observations from elders about what ministers may misunderstand about their role, pressures, and perspective. The elders describe the realities of serving voluntarily, balancing church leadership with outside responsibilities, and wanting genuine partnership with senior staff.

• Elders often carry significant responsibilities outside the church while serving voluntarily in church leadership.
• Elders want to contribute meaningfully rather than merely rubber-stamp ministry decisions.
• Healthy elder-minister relationships depend on trust, communication, shared responsibility, and mutual respect.

By Darrel Lowland

What Elders Wish Ministers Understood

1. That elders have a full life outside of the church.
2. That elders have a totally different reference point for issues.
3. That on many matters elders have a lot to contribute.
4. That most elders are ignorant of the Word.
5. That elders don’t understand their job or their role.
6. That many elders are in over their heads.
7. That elders have outside pressures affecting their role as elders.
8. That being an elder is a leadership position often without opportunities to lead.
9. That elders want the minister to open up and tell them what he wants and needs.
10. That elders don’t believe all that Bible training makes you smarter than them.

—Jack Coffee, elder and leader of several building programs at Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, KY

An Elder’s Vocation Outside the Church

God has called the elders, in many cases, to full-time employment outside of the church and voluntary ministry in the church. Not that God doesn’t expect us to take the role seriously or that at times we won’t have to rearrange other parts of our lives to handle particularly pressing issues within the ministry, but rather that there is some reason God called us to do other work (either to make a difference there or to equip us for future roles or to fund God’s ministry elsewhere, etc.) and we need to do that in a godly manner as well.

—Chris Hills, elder, Northside Christian Church, Wadsworth, OH

How Elders View Staff Leadership

1. Elders may be asking questions to obtain information rather than because they intend to criticize.
2. Senior staff should run with their plans, but keep the elders informed.
3. Generally, elders prefer to avoid detailed rules as long as peace and order can be maintained without them.
4. Elders (especially new ones) want to contribute their comments and ideas in board meetings to feel that they are a part of the eldership.
5. Elders do not want to be a rubber stamp.
6. Elders want unpleasant duties shared by everyone.
7. Elders really want the senior minister to serve with joy because of the support of the elders.

—Freeman Kinsinger, elder, West Side Christian Church, Springfield, IL

Why Meetings Matter to Elders

Elders don’t mind sitting in meetings. For many of us that is what we do in our jobs. It’s how we can participate in change, stay informed, and come to decisions or determine the next action.

—David Fowler, elder, Northside Christian Church, Wadsworth, OH

Darrel Rowland is public affairs editor of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and an adult Bible fellowship teacher at Worthington Christian Church.

Read More on This Topic

READ ALL THE ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC written by Darrel Rowland:

• “Two Elders Now Ministers Talk About Elder-Minister Relationships”
• “Elders & Ministers: Speaking the Same Language”
• “Should the Minister Be One of the Elders?”
• “What Elders Don’t Understand About Ministers”
• “What Ministers Don’t Understand About Elders”

Author: Darrel Rowland